Drowning
by Fate VII
Summary: Shadi does some thinking during one of the few rainshowers he's witnessed in his life. There are some things you can accept and some things you can't, but you can always fight.


Fate: This's been up on Kyokou Geemu for a while, and it didn't occur to me until recently that it wasn't up here, too. So, uh…yeah, here you go. It's that Shadi-Eisei-Kaitei fic I was promising you. See, I _do_ get around to those fics that are on that list.

Disclaimer: Fate does not own Yu-Gi-Oh. I mean, honestly…how many short, fanatical redheads with a penchant for attacking things with Sharp Pointy Objects do you know who're confused for rich Japanese men? However, those who steal Eisei and Kaitei without asking will be put on spamlists. Mwa ha ha.

&

Shadi stood at the huge apartment window, holding the shades apart, staring at the rains. 

_I was always told the gods caused these rains, these...these _things_. Science...science invalidates that. Science invalidates me, my job...my yamis. Everything. Science isn't about finding how...it's about proving what isn't. But why does it matter? I shouldn't even care. _

_It's__ raining. _

He glanced down at the street below, where flashes and darts of his two yamis could be seen through the gunmetal gray sheets of rain that turned the caustic pale city into a murky dark ghost town. People were tired of the rain already. It had been amusing for the first few hours, then had turned dark and ugly, with almost icy sheets slicing through any daring merrymaker. Now only two creatures of darkness danced around outside, oblivious to the cold and wet. 

He himself hadn't gone outside yet. 

He slowly closed the heavy drapes meant to keep the heat out and turned to the empty apartment room, reaching up to slowly finger-comb through his tangled dark locks of hair. He slowly padded over to the mirror and stared at himself. Curly gold-brown hair, dark blue-green eyes, tanned skin. He looked as foreign to Egypt as either of the Ishtars. It wasn't much comfort knowing that his bloodline outran theirs, or that as the first true Item holder in his family he was entitled to some natural physical oddities. 

"I do so want to be normal," he murmured, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on the mirror. 

The doorknob rattled, then turned sharply. The door slammed into the wall, then bounced back and hit one of the entrants, who yelped. 

"Hikaaaaaaaaaaari!" Eisei said cheerfully. Shadi could hear him bouncing into the room. Then, inexplicably, Eisei stopped. "What is it?" 

Shadi waited for his other yami Kaisei to answer before realizing that he was the one being addressed. _A thousand times a fool,_ he cursed himself. "What's what?" 

Shadi barely registered that Eisei had moved again before two damp hands curled around his shoulders and turned him around. "You. Upset," Kaisei translated, holding his left shoulder. Eisei had a hand on his right, which was slowly changing places.  

"I'm just fi--EISEI! Your hands are cold!" 

"You're cold too," Eisei said, attaching himself to Shadi's side and leaning his head on his hikari's shoulder.  

"Mmm. I guess." Shadi said thoughtfully. "I didn't notice." 

"Come outside with us!" Kaisei encouraged. 

"No." 

"Hikari, what is it?" Eisei asked. 

"Take your hands out of my shirt and I'll tell you," Shadi said pointedly. 

Eisei immediately did so, then pulled Shadi out of Kaisei's grasp and hugged him. "Kai, go get a towel," he said over Shadi's head. "Hikari, what's wrong?" 

"Life. Everything. You. Rain," Shadi said coherently. "You know." 

"No, not really," Eisei said thoughtfully.  

Kaisei wandered back in, a towel over his head and another in his hands. He promptly pitched that one at Eisei, but missed and hit Shadi in the back of the head. 

"Dammit, if you've broken this hikari, you're doing half the killings until we get another one," Eisei threatened. 

"I didn't break him, idiot," Kaisei said defensively. "And he's mine. I wouldn't kill him."

"He's more my hikari than yours. You just kind of hang around all the time. I'm the one who accepted him." 

"Then why haven't I killed him?" 

"Because I'd stop you." Eisei said swiftly.  

"Good enough," Kaisei said sulkily, sitting on one of the orange crates that doubled as furniture moodily. 

"So what is it?" Eisei demanded. 

"I want to be normal," Shadi said slowly. 

"Normal?" Eisei inquired, starting to run his fingers through his hikari's hair.  

"You know. Normal." 

"Wh-why?" Eisei asked, startled. "What do you want from normalcy? I-I mean, what do you...what is it? What can we help with?" 

"You can't," Shadi said, his voice oddly detached. "Of course you can't. I wouldn't have this problem if you could. I know you. You're in my mind." 

"You want us out?" Eisei asked. 

Shadi closed his eyes and let Eisei play with his hair absentmindedly, willing himself to think about it but instead wandering hazily in a mental sort of fog. "It's like...I'm drowning all the time, I don't know what to think or what to say, and everything's just...blank. So blank." 

"Then don't think," Eisei said. "Never think. It's okay." 

"But I have to...sometimes I have to." 

"Like now?" 

"Yes." Shadi slumped in Eisei's hold.  

"What is it?" Eisei asked anxiously. "What's making things so bad?" 

"I don't know. I just don't know..." 

Kaisei stood and went to the door, pulling it open. "Come on, hikari." 

Eisei reluctantly let Shadi go, and the two yamis propelled him out of the apartment complex and into the hammering rain. 

It screamed down on Shadi, hitting his skin and hair with enough force to sting and the occasional bruise from hail. Water streamed over his skin and into his eyes and mouth as he tilted his head up, soaked to the skin and unable to speak or move or even breathe... 

Hands pulled his face down to meet someone's lips--_Eisei's_, Shadi 

thought hazily_, I know he's a randy idiot but what _is_ he doing? _

//I am not a randy idiot,// Eisei said breathlessly in his mind. //Now shove it and enjoy this.// 

/I'm not sure that I can breathe,/ Shadi said dizzily. 

//That's all right,// Eisei whispered. //You said yourself that you were drowning.// 

When Eisei let him up for air, he realized that Kaisei was holding him from behind. \\You can't have all the hikari fun,\\ he complained.  

//I told you, try and take him from me,// Eisei said defensively. 

Kaisei shook his head. \\Not now. He needs support, not twins fighting over him.\\ 

/I don't need support,/ Shadi gasped, pulling free and looking at them through soaked strands of hair. /I'll be fine on my own./ 

//You're never on your own, though,// Eisei told him. 

/You're right,/ Shadi said. /I never am./ 

//Is that what you meant by not being normal?// Eisei asked, dreading the answer. 

/Yes,/ Shadi whispered. 

Silence. Shadi mentally cursed himself and wondered how the devil he was going to get out of this situation. 

Icy fingers touched the back of his neck. "Then you don't get to be normal," Eisei murmured. 

Shadi closed his eyes. "I know."  

%

Fluffy: This turned out angstier than we thought it would. Le sigh. But I like it. No one ever really thinks about how Shadi feels. So we did.

Duel: Behold! This story has no reviews. This needs to be changed. I will make it so! And then everyone should go play SimWorld. But that isn't the point! REVIEW! Or be struck down by LIGHTNING! Wahahaha!

Fate: *sweatdrop* I swear, she's not _really_ the psychotic part of my personality embodied and given superhuman powers. That's just a myth Fluffy likes to tell people. But…do as she says. Please? For my sake?


End file.
